grande verse / eras / sweetener
2018 · republic records · released 2018-08-17
sweetenerariana grande’s 2018 album
pharrell, trauma, and the strangest pop record she has made
photographs
every one creative-commons licensed, credited under the frame, and listed on credits.
Ariana Grande performs "God Is A Woman" at the 2018 Video Music Awards in New York City. MTV UK · CC BY 3.0 · credits 
Ariana Grande performs "God Is A Woman" at the 2018 Video Music Awards in New York City. MTV UK · CC BY 3.0 · credits 
Ariana Grande performs "God Is A Woman" at the 2018 Video Music Awards in New York City. MTV UK · CC BY 3.0 · credits 
Ariana Grande performs "God Is A Woman" at the 2018 Video Music Awards in New York City. MTV UK · CC BY 3.0 · credits 
Ariana Grande performs "God Is A Woman" at the 2018 Video Music Awards in New York City. MTV International · CC BY 3.0 · credits
the story
half of this album is produced by pharrell williams and it sounds like it: rhythms that land slightly wrong on purpose, arrangements with holes left in them, harmony stacks used as texture rather than sweetening. it is the least radio-shaped music she had released and it won the grammy for best pop vocal album anyway.
the other half, the max martin half, contains the actual singles, and the seam between the two is audible. that seam is the record's most interesting feature — it is a pop star being pulled between the song she knows how to write and the one she wants to make.
it is also a record explicitly about recovering from the previous year, and it declines to be triumphant about it. the sequencing keeps interrupting its own good mood, which is a more honest depiction of that process than a straightforwardly uplifting album would have been.
worth knowingthe lead single changes time feel inside its first fifteen seconds, opening as a slow ballad before resolving into a disco pulse — an unusual thing to do with the opening of a comeback single.
why it looks like this
pastel lilac and cloud, generous soft corners, no hard edges anywhere. the era read as airy and slightly unreal — the palette follows, with the widest corner radius of any era here.
the songs
the whole record, in order — all 15 tracks, with a preview on each. 10 of them have a full write-up here so far; the rest are listed with everything we can state as fact and nothing we cannot.
- raindrops (an angel cried)0:38
- blazed feat. Pharrell Williams3:16
- the light is coming feat. Nicki Minaj3:48
- R.E.M4:06
- God is a woman3:18
- sweetener3:29
- successful3:47
- everytime2:52
- breathin3:18
- no tears left to cry3:26
- borderline feat. Missy Elliott2:58
- better off2:51
- goodnight n go3:10
- pete davidson1:14
- get well soon5:22
running order and previews from apple. released 2018-08-17.
around the same time
2 more recordings released alongside this era rather than on it — singles, features on other people’s records, deluxe cuts, soundtracks and christmas songs. every one with a preview and a way to go and hear it properly.
- Dance To Thisspotifyapple musicyoutube3:52
- Bedspotifyapple musicyoutube3:10